Many think that abortion is a service mostly used by young, unwed women to hide from their parents the fact that they have had sex.

I was a young, nineteen year old girl from a privileged family brought up in a suburb of New York. My parents took me to Santa Domingo to have my illegal abortion.

I was 23 years old when I got pregnant. I was neither emotionally nor financialy ready to have a child. My boyfriend, being catholic, did not agree with my decision but he took me to Planned Parenthood and helped pay for it.

I was 22, working and living in Manhattan. I used an IUD for birth control, but kept getting infections so my doctor took it out and gave me a prescription for a diaphragm. I had close ties to my college friends back in Ohio, including a man I'd been in love with.

When I was 18 I went through a bit of a rough patch, and did not have access to my birth control. I ended up becoming pregnant for the first time. As soon as I told my much older then-boyfriend, he skipped town and I never saw him again.

I got pregnant shortly after my mother lost her grueling battle with ALS. It was a long, draining and emotional process that left me severely depressed and fragile.